The Australian Bureau of Statistics is building a single service delivery channel for access to every piece of statistical data held in public databases nationally. Direct marketers need not salivate because the National Data Network will only hold de-identified information. The network, brainchild of former Australian of the Year and child health researcher Fiona Stanley, is under construction
The Sound Guy has developed the Purr Detector [pdf] lighted cat collar. In addition to providing family fun, the Purr Detector can also flash when the cat is outside at night, for improved safety and visibility. The Purr Detector was created by Earl Vickers, who has a patent pending for the technology — via Lucie
Christopher Walken for President 2008. Make of that what you will — via Warren Ellis
Out of 168 nations in a Harvard study, how many do you think had some form of paid maternity leave? The answer may surprise you. 163 out of 168. That’s how many countries think that new mothers shouldn’t be subjected to discrimination, and that believe women shouldn’t take a career hit because they choose to become a mother. Only two developed nations don’t have paid maternity leave: The United States and Australia — via morons.org
Erik Fitzpatrick did a nice job turning an old Smith-Corona manual typewriter into a functional keyboard, and composed a nice writeup about it, with pictures
Stirling engines are not a neglected or forgotten technology after all. With 20 years of in-the-field fine-tuning, Stirling Energy Systems is now ready to go big — real big. They signed a purchase agreement Tuesday with Southern California Edison, to install a 20,000 dish array that will cover 1,800 hectares and will be capable of generating 500 megawatts of electricity — more than all other US solar projects combined — making this the largest solar installation in the world. Each collector has a 11m diameter array of mirrors to focus the sun’s rays on the Stirling engine, which turns the heat into rotational torque for electricity generation
Spammer Scott Levine was convicted of massive data theft from Acxiom Corporation. Prosecutors say his company, the now-defunct Snipermail.com, stole 1.6 billion customer records from Acxiom and sold the data. He faces a maximum of 640 years in prison under the law, though he will likely be sentenced to far less
Responding to an outcry by publishers, Google has temporarily scaled back plans to make the full text of copyrighted books searchable online. For three months, Google will stop scanning copyrighted books to allow copyright holders to inform the company of objections
Paul Sheehan has a good write up on the blind eye turned to loony fundies [BugMeNot] in both Australia and abroad, and how that apathy helped create the murderers of Stephen Vincent: To call him a casualty of a war or the victim of terrorists would be a mistake. He was murdered by perverts. “Pervert” does not remotely confer the same aura and power of “terrorist”. This murder was committed in the name of religion but, at its deepest level, was another manifestation of envy, impotence and sexual repression
Education Minister Brendan Nelson — a man whose sole purpose in life appears to be destroying the education system — supports the teaching of creationism [BugMeNot]. Sure, he weaselled out of throwing his full support behind it, but it still stands as proof that he is unfit to serve as Education Minister and that John Howard has surrounded himself with loony fundie toadies — via Terry Frost
Japan has announced plans to deploy a massive broadband satellite operational in 2015. It will provide 100 Mb/s service to mountains, remote islands and bullet trains along with comm for disaster recovery. Its giant 20m diameter dish is supposed to be able to receive even weak mobile phone signals. Of course, the ping times wont be so good
A speeding case has been thrown out in Australia after the Roads and Traffic Authority admitted that it could not prove the integrity of speed-camera photos. The case revolved around the integrity of a mathematical MD5 algorithm published on each picture and used as a security measure to prove pictures have not been doctored after they have been taken
King George II, living proof that man descended from apes and some haven’t quite managed to quite stand upright yet, has started a national debate in the US over the teaching of evolution in school. The retarded monkey boy has suggested that a theory known as intelligent design
— the current PC term for creationism — should be taught in the classroom. His championing of intelligent design will be interpreted as further evidence of the growing influence of the religious right
Google has announced that they will provide RSS and Atom feeds in their news section. Previously the only way to get RSS/Atom feeds from Google news was through third party scrapers. Now, you can get feeds for any of Google’s news areas as well as feeds for a news search. The news search is basically the same concept as Google news alerts, only in RSS
Professor Veena Sahajwalla of the University of New South Wales has won a prestigious Australian science award for developing a technique to use waste plastic in steel making, a process that could have implications for recycling scrap metal that accounts for 40% of steel production
AOL and Microsoft are hitting spammers where it hurts most: They are confiscating their assets and giving them away
Derek Lovley and his colleagues of the University of Massachusetts discovered that the Geobacter bacteria is capable of producing nanowires. The bacteria is normally used to clean up toxic waste. Geobacter does not use oxygen, but metal as its source for power. This probably explains the 3nm to 5nm nanowires it excretes while working. What metal the nanowires are made of is not yet known, but the genetic code responsible for their creation is. This opens up the possibility of modifying the bacteria to create nanowires on chips
Pollycarpus Priyanto, a pilot with Indonesia’s national airline Garuda, is on trial in Jakarta for the murder of Munir Said Thalib, a leading human rights activist, who died from arsenic poisoning on a Garuda flight to Amsterdam last September. The case is being seen as test of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s commitment to law and order
The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) has come up with an interesting way of making sure information about how to handle the buried nuclear waste is left for future generations. Computer technology is notorious for being superceded rather quickly. In the light of this, the UKAEA decided to ditch all the high tech solutions and go for something that has a genuinely proven track record: Papyrus. Or, the closest thing we’ve got that doesn’t involve actual reeds: so-called permanent paper. After all, if it worked for the Ancient Egyptians, it should work for us
Political group GetUp! has become the target of an investigation to force the internet operation, which is bombarding Coalition senators with e-mail, to prove it is not a front for the Labor Party. The online operation, which has the support of union boss Bill Shorten, dotcom millionaire Evan Thornley and former Liberal leader John Hewson to raise $1.5 million, flooded Liberal and Nationals senators with e-mail this week. It’s funny that the pollies get the hump when they get spammed but turn a blind eye to little Johnny Coward paying his son to run a phone spam campaign during the last election. Seems it’s a different matter when it’s their inboxes that are flooded with crap
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